KUOW Blog
News, factoids, and insights from KUOW's newsroom. And maybe some peeks behind the scenes. Check back daily for updates.
Have any leads or feedback for the KUOW Blog? Contact Dyer Oxley at dyer@kuow.org.
Stories
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King County Council tightens oversight of youth diversion programs
The King County Council is increasing its oversight of programs meant to keep at-risk young people out of courts and jail. The council voted unanimously this week to require information about outcomes of the county’s Restorative Community Pathways program.
Executive Dow Constantine must submit that information by the end of September, with the signoff of the King County Prosecutor, or $3.3 million in funding will be put on hold.
Under the Restorative Community Pathways program, King County contracts with a series of community nonprofits for court diversion. Prosecutors refer youth facing lower-level criminal charges to the program, which is meant to match youth with services that attempt to address the root causes of their alleged crimes. The program is known as “pre-filing diversion” because prosecutors agree to divert the case away from court rather than filing the potential charge.
But Councilmember Rod Dembowski, who sponsored the budget amendment, said reporting by KUOW this spring revealed lax tracking of youth participation and outcomes.
RELATED: King County gave millions to ‘No New Youth Jail’ activists to help kids — and then looked away
“The idea is good here,” Dembowski said, “but I think the county moved too quickly, tried to refer too many kids to too many organizations that weren’t ready from a capacity standpoint to do the work, and we just haven’t had enough transparency on this.”
He said councilmembers want to know more about what happens once prosecutors refer young people into the program, but that information has been hard to obtain.
“Dozens if not hundreds of youth are referred to the program and may never even be contacted, and may never participate in it," Dembowski said. "And then nothing is really done. So we’re spending tens of millions of dollars to support programs that may be providing very few services to very few youth.”
Reporting by KUOW also revealed that King County does not conduct its own background checks on youth workers, and that procedures by some organizations appeared to be looser than others.
"That’s very troubling to me, just from a care for our young people's perspective — also from a liability perspective for the county if something goes wrong," Dembowski said.
Under a council budget proviso approved on Tuesday, Executive Dow Constantine — whose Department of Community and Human Services contracts with the program’s service providers — must submit a letter by September 30 this year with extensive information, including the number of youth “actively being provided services” and a summary of the program’s outcomes.
The letter must also include a plan to evaluate the efficacy of the program by contracting with an external evaluator like the University of Washington. The proviso said the executive's letter “shall be signed by the prosecuting attorney” as well, “to ensure that the prosecuting attorney’s office concurs with the accountability and transparency measures established by the executive as described in the letter.”
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UW reaches deal with postdocs and researchers, ending strike
The University of Washington, and the union representing thousands of its postdocs and researchers, agreed on a tentative contract Thursday. The deal brings UAW 4121’s strike to a close.
The six-day strike was the second-longest in UW’s history, according to the organizers.
“I think everyone out here is doing the work that they are doing because they care about their research, and they want to make the world a better place,” said research scientist Katie Osterhage on the picket line last week. “Also, while we're doing it, we'd like to be able to make a living wage.”
Under the tentative deal, minimum wages for postdocs will have increased 28% by January 1 and will be re-negotiated within a year. Postdocs also secured an increased child care fund and other benefits they were seeking.
Researchers will see a 33% increase to minimum salaries over the life of the contract.
“We are pleased to have reached agreements with the postdocs and the research scientists and engineers,” said UW spokesperson Victor Balta in an email to KUOW. “Details on the agreements will be available once the contracts are ratified.”
The union will begin voting on the proposed contract on Friday.
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Highest level of Seattle office workers since the Before Times: Today So Far
- Half of Seattle's downtown office employees have returned to their desks ... what does that actually mean?
- We need to get fish back into the Skagit River.
- These starfish are coming back.
This post originally appeared in KUOW's Today So Far newsletter for June 15, 2023.
Half of Seattle's downtown office employees have returned to their desks. That's according to new numbers from the Downtown Seattle Association, which says that downtown office foot traffic is the best it has been since before the pandemic.
Here's the nuance in the numbers. They're comparing May 2023 with May 2019, before the pandemic shut things down, as the standard of measurement. Also, the in-office numbers only account for Tuesday through Thursday, which are the most common days that folks are coming into the office. People still prefer to stick around home on Mondays and Fridays.
The increased foot traffic has come as good news to downtown businesses, and bad news for anybody on the area's roads. The sudden influx of office commuters has been noticed on the routes into Seattle.
There are some other takeaways from the DSA's numbers. Check out the full story here.
Seattle City Light operates hydroelectric dams throughout the region, including three dams on the Skagit River. If you turn on your lights in Seattle, this is where about half of that energy comes from. We value those lights, and also Netflix, PS5s, and plugging in electric cars. But this energy has come at the cost of salmon runs.
City Light is now engaged in a project expected to take about two decades — create a path for salmon to get around three dams on the Skagit River. This would reintroduce salmon to habitats they have been cut off from for generations.The project is bigger than City Light, too, with partners ranging from local tribes to federal agencies. It's early in the process and there are still hurdles to jump before getting started. Read the full story here.
Folks have their eyes on another species out on the coast. Starfish are showing signs of a comeback after years of suffering from a wasting disease. Ochre star populations are on the upswing across the West Coast, including in Puget Sound.
“The population has been rebounding,” Olympic National Park biologist Steve Fradkin told KUOW. “It's still not to where it was, but we're not losing a lot of organisms.”
That doesn't mean things have entirely corrected. There are about 20 species that this disease has affected, and they remain under threat. Scientists also do not have an answer for where the wasting disease even came from.
“As a scientist, it's troubling to not be able to have a definitive answer for what is causing it,” Fradkin said.
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Dockworkers reach tentative deal with West Coast ports, averting strike
The organizations representing dockworkers and ports along the West Coast reached a tentative agreement Thursday after months of tense negotiations.
Acting U.S. Secretary of Labor Julie Su stepped in to help broker the deal and avoid a looming strike that could have severely disrupted the supply chain.
The International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) and Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) announced the agreement in a joint press release. If ratified, the contract will cover all 29 West Coast Ports for the next six years.
“We are pleased to have reached an agreement that recognizes the heroic efforts and personal sacrifices of the ILWU workforce in keeping our ports operating,” said PMA President James McKenna and ILWU President Willie Adams in the joint statement. “We are also pleased to turn our full attention back to the operation of the West Coast Ports.”
ILWU declined KUOW's interview request, but provided details on next steps.
Local chapters of the union will send delegates to a contract caucus to review the agreement and make a recommendation to rank and file members. Those workers will then vote on the tentative deal. The union said the ratification process can take a few months.
Adams said, "time at the bargaining table was well spent and that the agreement represents the hard work of our rank and file and the sacrifices they made during the pandemic," in a statement shared with KUOW.
PMA did not respond to requests for interviews.
Both groups said in the statement they will not be providing further details about the agreement.
Longshore workers have been negotiating with the ports since their contract expired last July. The dispute grew heated in recent weeks, with the PMA accusing the union of grinding port operations in Seattle and beyond to a halt through work stoppages. The ILWU denied those claims.
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Would you pay $20 for a pampered cherry? Today So Far
- They're called "ultra premium" cherries and they're grown right here in Washington state.
- Three glaciers disappeared from Mount Rainier.
- Seattle's City Hall Park has reopened after a two-year closure.
This post originally appeared in KUOW's Today So Far newsletter for June 14, 2023.
It's a cherry worth $20, perhaps even more. They're called "ultra premium" cherries and they're grown right here in Washington state. But to get one, you'll have to travel outside the USA.
"They're like pampered cherries," Northwest News Network's Anna King told Seattle Now, also noting that, "Right now, it is for the super affluent, and it is for those premium markets."
King has been reporting in the Northwest's agricultural region for a couple decades and says she has never seen an operation like this one, outside of Kennewick, that produces these high-end cherries. They're grown in an upscale greenhouse in a highly controlled environment. The roof can open and close depending on the conditions — temperature, wind, moisture. A farmer controls it all through their smartphone. They're not harvested like other cherries. These are harvested in the middle of the night, when it's dark. The result is a cherry that is absent any bruises or blemishes, about the size of a half dollar.
"They want to preserve that crispy crunch when you first get into a cherry," King said of the nighttime harvest schedule. "We don't see that because our cherries might be harvested during different parts of the day, or they might be a little bit longer from tree to market. But these cherries are off the tree and in a market within 48 hours. That's pretty amazing timing given that they are going to Indonesia, Japan, China, all over in the Pacific Rim. So they are very preciously handled."
These cherries are not likely to show up on local grocery store shelves. King notes that Costco attempted to get ahold of some, but walked away with sticker shock. These cherries are slated for export. This luxury agricultural process could become more common in the Northwest as climate change alters farming conditions. Check out the full story over at Seattle Now.
I keep asking myself: What would I spend a spare $20 on? A cherry? I put this question to my KUOW web team colleagues. The idea around this quickly soured for those living in Seattle, where $20 perhaps doesn't go so far.
Reporter Ashley Hiruko would buy a ticket for a show at the Sunset Tavern, or some ice cream for the family from Salt and Straw. Editor Isolde Raftery argues that Seattle is not a $20 city, and says Seattle has a "mountain tax" — you pay a lot to live here and every now and then the mountain comes out and that's nice. But she'd probably go for coffee and a couple cookies for the kids. Editor Stephen Howie echoes that sentiment. When he comes into KUOW's Seattle office, $20 covers lunch for him. Otherwise, he'd go for a movie ticket, nice olive oil, a piece of halibut for two, or a "fancy-ass bouquet from Pike Place Market."
A Seattle lunch can cost $20 (unless you go to Dick's where you can get a week's worth of hamburgers). My problem is that when I buy lunch in the U-District, I usually walk by Pink Gorilla and end up buying a couple NES games, so that brings me to $20 real quick. Otherwise, I could probably get a cheap drink and an evening of pinball at Teddy's. I could get 40 pinball games if I stuck to Safecracker at Shorty's. You could get a game of pitch and putt for two at Green Lake, a cup of Mrs. Bennet's Nerve Tonic at Distant Worlds, and some noodles at Time Warp on Capitol Hill (and again, more pinball). Outside Seattle? I'd recommend a road trip to any of our region's drive-in movie theaters.
What do you think $20 can get you these days? In Seattle or elsewhere? Let me know at dyer@kuow.org.
Climate change is being blamed for the disappearance of a few more glaciers on Mount Rainier. Three glaciers are now absent from the mountain. They include Stevens Glacier, which is located on the southern slope. Its ice has dwindled so much that it can no longer be considered a glacier.
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Ken Jennings knows about everything. That now includes the afterlife
Well, he has at least tried to get a solid grasp of death lately.
Who is he? You might know Ken Jennings as the Jeopardy! genius-turned host. But he's also an author, and a guy who really wants to know stuff.
- Jennings rose to prominence as a contestant on the game show starting in the mid 2000s, becoming one of the highest earning winners to ever compete, amassing millions of dollars.
- Since then, he's become a fixture in the Jeopardy! universe. Jennings is a host for the show, as well as the author of many books covering history, humor, and now, what we can learn from our understandings of afterlife.
What's the big deal? Jennings' new book, "100 Places to See After You Die: A Travel Guide to the Afterlife," takes on his knowledge of just about everything, and attempts to extend it to the great unknown: death.
- The book focuses on the afterlife — including heaven, hell and everything in between — as depicted in religion, pop culture, literature and more.
- Jennings' research spanned from reading and analyzing descriptions of hell from ancient Tibet, to watching The Good Place, and parsing what these portrayals could tell us about humanity, religion and what we feel about the great beyond.
What are people saying? Jennings spoke with NPR about his fascination with the unknown, and what he learned about the afterlife.
On the research process:
Just like any traveler, I enjoyed revisiting some of my favorite afterlives. I mean, it's not really a book about death, honestly. It's a book about pop culture. And so it was a joy to me to revisit the creepy room with the little person from Twin Peaks or the disappointing afterlife in the last episode of Lost or Beetlejuice or the cornfields from Field of Dreams.
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Seattle's City Hall Park reopens after 2-year closure, following violent incidents
Downtown Seattle's City Hall Park reopened Tuesday, two years after it was closed in response to a string of violent incidents. It has since undergone a lot of changes.
“City Hall Park is revitalized," said King County Superior Court Presiding Judge Patrick Oishi at the reopening event. "Hopefully, as people are coming here, people will feel much more safe and comfortable when coming to the courthouse and accessing justice."
Judge Oishi said that in the past, court employees and jurors have expressed safety concerns. He also hopes court employees and others can go back to using the space as a popular lunch spot.
The park located on the corner of 3rd Avenue and Yesler Way garnered a lot of attention over the summer of 2021. In June of that year, a letter signed by 33 county judges cited safety concerns and urged city officials to close the park. It was closed after a stabbing, and an attempted rape at the nearby King County Courthouse. In August 2021, an encampment at the park was cleared. Eventually, Seattle and King County agreed to a land swap and the county took ownership of the park.
For two years, City Hall Park has been fenced off, and has undergone a clean up. The public was welcomed back this week.
Gavin Muller works at the courthouse. On Tuesday, he ordered lunch from a food truck at the park. He said he’s excited to have his lunch spot back as there are not many green spaces in the area.
“It's been kind of a bummer that it's been fenced off," Muller said. "This is kind of my one spot to eat lunch, not inside the courthouse. I hope that it stays open. I hope that it's a good environment for people to hang out."
The park is slated to get more lights and two patrolling park rangers. The city also plans to bring in more food trucks, buskers, and other entertainment. Muller says he is glad that the rangers will be present, but hopes they will not intimidate or push certain people out. He wants everyone to enjoy the park.
The reopening of City Hall Park was part of Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell’s Downtown Activation Plan. He set revitalizing parks as a top priority. Harrell plans to add 28 patrolling rangers throughout the park system.
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Washington state Superintendent Chris Reykdal will run for re-election in 2024
Washington state's superintendent of public education, Chris Reykdal, is running for re-election in 2024.
“To be the best, we have to keep innovating, transforming, and developing systems that support the unique needs of every single learner,” Reykdal said in a statement. “I can’t wait to lean into this work in the next phase of developing our excellent public school system.”
Reykdal announced this week that he is aiming for his third term in the office that oversees K-12 schools throughout the state. His current term ends at the start of 2025.
“Washington is recognized as one of the best states to raise a family, start a business, and thrive,” Reykdal said. “One of the reasons we rank so high is our outstanding public schools. In six years, despite a pandemic, we are near record highs in graduation rates; assessment scores are rising once again; enrollments are re-accelerating, we have expanded access to college credit while in high school; increased options to become a bilingual learner; added record investments to support students with disabilities; and we have opened up robust pathways that empower students to focus on college, apprenticeships, military service, or straight to work after high school.”
In his campaign announcement, Reykdal said he wants to build upon his listed achievements with a new agenda, including more mental health in schools; career and technical education in high school; universal nutritious meals; reforming student transportation; and more education for financial literacy, media literacy, civility, and computer sciences.
Reykdal was first elected to the post in 2016 (with 51% of the vote), then re-elected in 2020 (with 55% of the vote). He presided over the state's educational system as schools locally and across the country weathered the pandemic, controversies surrounding mask mandates, and online learning.
At one point, Reykdal had plans to withhold state and federal funding from any school district that knowingly violated the face mask requirement in schools.
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Homelessness count reaches record high in Whatcom County
The number of unhoused people in Bellingham and Whatcom County has reached an all-time high.
The latest point-in-time census report shows 1,059 people, from 850 different households, were either living in shelters, vehicles, tents, or on the street in Whatcom County as of January.
According to the Whatcom County Coalition to End Homelessness 2023 Annual Report:
"Between 2022 and 2023 there was a 27% increase in persons experiencing homelessness counted (from 832 persons experiencing homelessness last year to 1,059 this year). The number of households experiencing homelessness increased by 33% between 2022 and 2023 (from 639 households to 850 households). The numbers of both individuals and households counted in 2023 are the highest reported since counting began in 2008."
The Bellingham Herald also reports that there was a slight drop in the numbers last year, thanks to support programs created in response to the pandemic.
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Take 2: Workgroup formed to develop new Seattle drug possession law
Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell, and a team of city and community leaders, plan to go back to the drawing board to bring the city's municipal code in line with Washington state's new drug possession law.
A 24-member workgroup has been formed to develop an ordinance that will align Seattle's local law with state law. (A list of workgroup members can be found below.)
“We are committed to addressing the deadly public health crisis playing out on our streets, holding dealers accountable for trafficking illegal drugs harming our communities, and advancing innovative health strategies to help those struggling with substance use disorder,” Mayor Bruce Harrell said in a statement. “There is a time for appropriate constitutional arrests when people are posing a threat to others; however, when people are a threat only to themselves, they need compassionate treatment. Updating the Seattle Municipal Code to align with recently passed state law makes sense, as does demonstrating how this additional tool will be applied and how it fits in the broader spectrum of treatment and diversion options.”
The state's new law goes into effect July 1. There was a previous attempt to establish a local drug possession law, but the Seattle City Council rejected the proposal last week. That bill proposed to allow the city attorney to prosecute the cases, which are now gross misdemeanors under state law. A majority of council members voted against the idea, citing fears it would lead to more low income and people of color being charged.
RELATED: Finger-pointing and fallout in the wake of Seattle City Council drug law vote
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Where are we gonna put that airport? Today So Far
- Where are we gonna put that airport in Washington state?
- The 2023 wildfire season in the Northwest to be among the worst in the USA.
- The 50th anniversary of when the Seattle City Council took its first steps for gay rights.
This post originally appeared in KUOW's Today So Far newsletter for June 13, 2023.
I said it last week, and I'll say it again: Now is a good time to make sure you're stocked up on air filters. All those N95 masks from the pandemic could also come in handy this summer. Fingers crossed that this prediction will fall flat, but as of now, experts expect the 2023 wildfire season in the Northwest to be among the worst in the USA.
"With the lower and mid elevations, where most of the timber and burnable material is, it's been in drought and it seems to be worsening week by week," said John Saltenberger, manager with the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center. "That's why, first and foremost, we're anticipating the fire threat in Washington to be probably the greatest in the nation at this point."
The Northwest Interagency Coordination Center is the agency in charge of organizing wildfire responses across Washington and Oregon. Western Washington has already begun taking action — various burn bans have emerged, including in our area. Read more here.
Washington's Legislature formed a commission in 2019, tasked with finding a location for a new regional airport. Their final recommendation is due on June 15. They're not going to make it.
If you've followed the news over the past year, you know why. The commission narrowed in on three potential locations in Western Washington. It didn't get an opportunity to narrow further to one spot, because opposition to the idea was so fierce.
"We recognize and acknowledge the deep levels of anxiety that people have in this decision, we recognize that people feel threatened by this work," said Commission chair Warren Hendrickson at the group's final meeting last Friday.
So this commission was never able to take off, but that doesn't mean this story is permanently grounded. The state Legislature began priming a new engine for this effort last session. Another workgroup was established which will start over from square one. Get ready for another round of potential airport sites in our region, along with another round of opposition to those ideas. Olympia correspondent Jeanie Lindsay has the full story here.
This June is not only Pride month — 2023 is also the 50th anniversary of when the Seattle City Council took its first steps for gay rights.
Councilmember Jeanette Williams sponsored a bill in 1973 that made job discrimination illegal based on marital status, political ideology, and sexual orientation. This was the first time in Seattle that gay rights were mentioned in law. The ordinance passed. In 1975, Seattle expanded these protections to housing.
There was pushback, however. SOME group spearheaded an effort to knock down the laws in Seattle. The group was literally called "SOME" — Save Our Moral Ethics. They got Initiative 13 on the ballot in 1978, which would have nixed Seattle's protections for gays and lesbians when it came to employment and housing. It also proposed to shut down the city's Office of Women's Rights. By a two-to-one margin, Seattle voters rejected the initiative.
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Did You Know?: The first and last time Spock showed up in Medford, Ore.
This "Did You Know?" segment was published as part of the June 13, 2023 Today So Far newsletter.
On April 15, 1967, actor Leonard Nimoy showed up in Medford, Ore. in full Spock costume to be the grand marshal of the town's Pear Blossom Parade. It was a big deal for the small town. Spock was on the front page of the Medford Mail Tribune the next day (this newspaper ceased operations in January 2023). It was also a big deal, in a way, for "Star Trek." At the time, the show was between its first and second seasons, and its ratings were struggling. Local appearances like this were encouraged to drive up publicity. It worked ... a little too well. Nimoy's experience in Medford is why he never appeared as Spock in public again.
While the first documented "Star Trek" fan convention was in 1969, Spock's appearance at the parade in Medford has been seen as the first fan gathering. A few hundred were expected at the small town's annual parade. Instead, thousands descended upon Medford.
As Nimoy recalled in his 1995 memoir, "I am Spock," after the parade, he was led to a bandstand in a local park where he and officials expected a couple hundred autographs would be handed out, but thousands of people showed up in Medford that day to see Spock. The bandstand started to sway as the crowd swelled and pushed against the stage. Nimoy became concerned that someone would be crushed. A police escort was required to escort Nimoy through the crowd and away from the park.
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